The Stem Cell Blogs of China – Andrew Leonard

Americans go to Shenzhen to seek experimental stem cell therapy, from Salon’s “How the World Works”:

Reading the blog postings of patients who have undergone experimental stem cell therapy in China, I found myself recalling the “black clinics” of Chiba city dreamed up by William Gibson in his breakthrough novel “Neuromancer.”

In Japan, he’d known with a clenched and absolute certainty, he’d find his cure. In Chiba. Either in a registered clinic or in the shadowland of black medicine. Synonymous with implants, nerve-splicing, and microbionics, Chiba was a magnet for the Sprawl’s techno-criminal subcultures.

It’s not that there is anything new about the sight of Americans, suffering from medical conditions that U.S. doctors can’t cure, seeking an alternative elsewhere. That’s normal, completely understandable behavior. Reading the accounts of men and women suffering from debilitating illnesses like ataxia or Lou Gehrig’s disease, one cannot but sympathize with their hopes that Chinese medicine can offer some solace. [Full Text]